Lost in Memories
by Nix-the-Neko
Summary: A routine mako reactor check goes terribly wrong when Genesis clones attack... DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1

Duck, dodge, swing, block, swing. Zack was just doing a routine mako reactor check in Junon with Sephiroth; kill some fiends of the area, the works. Zack jumped back and cart wheeled his arms slightly and stepped forward again, nearly having fallen off the cliff he was situated on. The arid smell of the rain that was falling filled his nostrils. It was storming heavily, and to fall into the ocean right now, from this height, Zack would be smashed into the rocks and most likely be killed. As if to answer this, a huge wave smashed against the cliff, making a spray that almost reached them. Yes, Zack definitely did not want to fall.

Sephiroth was busy fighting off a summon and Zack was on his own. They had been ambushed by Genesis Clones on the way to the reactor. Actually, it was Zack's fault for wanting to see the ocean before they had to enter the reactor. Zack had been attacked and called for Sephiroth, alerting him to the problem. Sephiroth had quickly run over, upon seeing Zack being steadily pushed toward the cliff's edge. That had been when the Genesis clones had unleashed their summon, Bahamut ZERO.

Where were all these clones coming from! Zack groaned and swung again, smashing a few of the clones into each other and out of his way. But before he could even move forward, several new stronger clones took their place. "Damn, you guys are really starting to annoy me!" Zack yelled at them as he swung again. He couldn't use a materia, in the time that would take to secure and charge it, these guys would be on him, and Zack would be knocked off the cliff or impaled by a sword.

From the pained roars of the Bahamut, Zack knew that it didn't have much time left. With this renewed sense of courage Zack let out a yell and he swiped at the Clones once more, grinning. The area he was on was rocky and soaking wet and the wind was blowing the rain straight into his eyes, but Zack still fought own, fighting his way away from the cliff. Zack blocked a sword swipe and parried with one of his own, knocking the clone away.

It was only when Zack heard the final roars of the defeated Bahamut that Zack looked up, only to see a grenade from one of the clones flying toward him. Zack's eyes went wide and he quickly scrambled for a barrier materia. It was during his attempt to secure it, two of the remaining Genesis Clones used a fire spell on him. Due to the rain the spells were not as powerful as they could have been and they knocked him back toward the edge of the cliff once more. It was the blast from the grenade that sent him over it.

Suddenly, Sephiroth was there, killing the clones and reaching out his hand to catch Zack. The last thing Zack saw was a look of horror and shock on Sephiroth's face as he literally slipped through his fingers and plunged toward the water.

…

Zack's eyes slowly opened and he winced against the bright light. Groaning he closed his eyes again and relaxed against his bed. He opened his eyes again and sat up sharply. Zack gasped and his eyes watered. He felt like he'd been run over by a truck! Also, this was not his room at Shin-Ra! "Where am I?" He muttered to himself.

"Ugh… I feel like I've been hit by a very large and very heavy truck dead on…" Zack groaned to himself. He looked down at his body to assess the damage and discovered that there wasn't a place that he _didn't_ hurt. How did this happen? Zack recalled falling. He frowned worriedly and thought back further. He had been fighting Genesis Clones and… and what? Why had he been fighting? His head felt fuzzy and ached as he tried to think. Perhaps it would come back to him later, no it definitely would! For now, Zack would figure out where he was.

Zack grunted slightly and looked around, trying to figure out his location. The walls seemed to be made out of logs, and everything was mostly wooden. There was a single window on the wall to his left and beneath it was a shelf with a single picture and a few little knick-knacks. There were a few pictures on the walls that looked like they had been drawn by a child.

The door opened and a little boy, perhaps around ten or twelve came in. Zack looked at him and the boy stared. The boy was scrawny, and obviously underfed. He wasn't wearing a shirt or shoes and his pants were tattered. He was tan and the brown hair on top of his head was bleached a lighter shade from being out in the sun. His light brown bangs framed two large amber colored eyes. There was dirt on his face and hands, like he had been working quite a bit.

"Hey kid, would you mind telling me where I am?" Zack asked politely. The kid walked over to him and glared.

"Shut up you." He ordered his voice low. Zack blinked at the kid. The kid was glaring and now was getting something out of his pocket. A knife! Zack looked at it, then at the boy. The boy's eyes were hard as he got closer.

"Hey, kid, don't. You don't want to do this." The kid looked dead on and took another step and snapped at him, "Shut up you SOLDIER scum! Don't tell me what to do!" Now the knife was held against his throat. It was a kitchen knife, it was sharp. Zack could tell that the kid had never done this before as he pressed a little too hard and the knife made a little cut on his neck.

The kid stared at the blood that dripped down, seemingly not sure what to make of it. Zack searched his face and noticed that he was breathing very face. Excitement, anger, or… fear? Zack held still and looked at the kid.

"Listen," Zack said in a tone that was much calmer then he felt, "I'm not telling you what to do, but I can tell you don't want to kill me." The kid stared at him and Zack was suddenly afraid that he'd said the wrong thing. After a few moments had passed Zack was still alive, but the kid hadn't removed the kitchen appliance either.

Suddenly, the door opened and a young girl with short and scruffy raven black hair walked in. She had a small bottle of pills that Zack couldn't identify as well. We're these children planning to drug him? Her eyes went wide and she spotted what the kid was doing.

"Glen! No, stop, he's hurt!" She rushed over. The kid, Glen, glared at her and stopped her in her tracks. "Equen, he's a SOLDIER! He broke in here and… and, he's bad!" Glen shouted, turning to face her, and moving the knife from Zack's neck.

Zack headache got a few notches worse and he winced slightly, holding his head in one hand and rubbing his neck slightly with the other.

"But… maybe if we keep him here… maybe we can trade him! We can make a deal with the Shin-Ra!" The girl, Equen said excitedly. "Trade with the Shin-Ra?" Glen asked skeptically, "How so?"

Zack looked at the looked at the two children in confusion. They wanted to trade _him_ get something from Shin-Ra? That would never work, the Shin-Ra wouldn't trade for him.

"You see Glen, if we traded, maybe the Shin-Ra could give us our Daddy back!" Equen whispered excitedly, "I mean, look at his uniform, he's obviously a high-rank!"

"Woah, woah, woah," Zack interrupted them. He was utterly confused as to what they were talking about and his mind was drawing a blank, "I'm not in SOLDIER."


	2. Chapter 2

(**A.N.**_ I do not own Final Fantasy VII, Zack, or Sephiroth. But I do however own Glen and Equen and every other original character in this. Also, this is my first fanfiction and I'd like it if people could tell me how I'm doing.)_

Both kids just stared at him. There were a few moments of silence before they looked at each other and back at him, looking utterly confused. Zack stared back, equally confused.

"But…but… he's wearing the uniform…" Glen said as he walked toward Equen, as if he was trying to convince her of the same thing. Equen stood back a bit nervously, wary of the knife. Glen then quickly turned back to Zack.

"You're wearing the uniform! You're trying to trick us!" Glen shouted angrily walking back over with the knife as menacing as a twelve year old wielding a knife can be. Zack took this time to notice that the knife looked relatively new and sharp. That thing could definitely cut him as proved earlier by the small red line on his neck. Equen squeaked and threw her arms around him.

"No! Stop it Glen!" Equen squealed and tried to hold him back. Suddenly, another kid walked in.

"Glen, Equen, what's going on?" the newest kid asked. Both of them looked at him and Zack took this opening to stand up.

Upon doing so, he gasped loudly as a lightning strike of pain lit up his abdomen. He felt like he had just been hit with a steam roller.

'Something must be broken…' Zack thought as he winced. 'Damn it this isn't good… I need to get outta here and get back to… to…' Zack wanted to hit himself to clear his head. A single second later he felt like he had hit his head as hard as he could as his headache came back full force.

Zack couldn't help but groan in pain as he fell back against the bed again. His chest was on fire from the inside and when he tried to move his right arm to cover his chest instinctively his arm erupted into the same flames of pain.

'More than one thing must be broken actually.' Zack looked at the kids again, trying to figure out what they were doing and if he was going to be taken out by these kids.

"Hey, you guys, how did I get here anyways..?" Zack gasped out in pain and looked at the girl, as she seemed to be the most likely to answer his question at the moment.

"I found you on the beach Mister SOLDIER… you were really hurt so Nick, Rook, Peter, Ankara, and I brought you back," Equen started to explain. Then the second boy finished the explanation. "Equen thought that we could exchange you for our dad back. You see mister; our dad has been gone for a very long time. He told us that he was going to join SOLDIER and—"

"Don't explain to him! He doesn't deserve to know!" Glen cut in sharply, glaring. "Besides, you both know that your dad's gone forever!"

The boy and Equen both gasped loudly and stared at him. Glen continued on his angry rant.

"We have to hurt the SOLDIER, just like we were hurt, we have to show them that it's not okay to hurt us! They have to see what happens when you hurt someone! They have to see that we can't be pushed around! We have to..!" Glen was crying now, large angry tears rolled down his face. The other boy and Equen were trembling slightly and looking between Zack and their friend.

Glen just started walking toward Zack again, holding the knife. 'He's too worked up,' Zack realized, 'He might actually use that knife…'

"Hey, kid, if you use that knife wouldn't that make you no better than SOLDIER?" Zack asked, hoping that this would bring the kid to his senses. Not that he believed anything wrong with Shin-Ra, it had always been his dream to join SOLDIER in hopes of becoming a hero and possibly meeting Sephiroth.

Glen didn't seem to hear him as he reached Zack's bedside, he raised the knife up, his face a twist of angry emotions and pain.

As the knife started its descent, Zack acted. His left hand flew up and grabbed Glen's wrist and pushed a certain nerve that forced Glen to release the knife. At the same time Zack shoved Glen back hard enough for him to fall down. The knife continued its fall and landed right over Zack's heart, sinking in slightly.

Zack gasped slightly and the knife fell to the side, not doing too much damage. Equen rushed over and scooped up the knife before Glen could get back up and get it again.

Zack looked at Glen who was rubbing his wrist angrily.

"See what he did!" Glen shouted and stood up again only for the other boy to grab him and drag him out of the room.

Equen set the knife down carefully on the shelf below the window. Zack watched her in distrust as she turned back to him, eyes downcast as if she felt guilty. For a second Zack wondered if he could trust this girl, but then a little part of him whispered that he shouldn't, not completely.

"I'm sorry about Glen… he…" Equen started but Zack cut her off.

"Hey, I'm sorry about your friend, but he really needs therapy." Zack said while looking straight at her. Now that Zack had a better look at her, he noticed that this girl had rather pale skin in contrast to Glen's tan skin. She was wearing an oversized faded purple shirt with dirty white shorts. Her eyes were so dark brown that they were almost black. He also noticed that she was breathing rapidly as she sat down.

At that point, Zack's own adrenaline faded and he inhaled sharply as the pain returned full force. Somehow, Zack knew that at one point he had been hurt worse than this, but he couldn't recall when that had happened. He groaned slightly again and Equen looked up, just as the other boy returned to the room.

He had a few pills in his hand as he walked over. "Hey, I'm Nick. I want you to take these pills, they'll make the pain go away." He said as he wiped his eyes with his other hand.

Zack shook his head slightly, not wanting to trust this kid whose friend had just tried to stab him.

The door opened and shut quickly as another person entered the room with a glass of some clear liquid that looked like water in hand.

This one was a teenage girl who looked around sixteen, the same age as him. She was tan and had long mud brown hair tied into a high pony tail. One of her eyes was sealed shut from a scar across it and the other eye was narrowed in concentration, as if trying to recall how to do something. She walked over to the bed quickly and took the pills from the younger Nick.

"He won't take the pills Ankara…" Nick mumbled to the girl. The girl, Ankara, looked down upon Zack and frowned deeply. She then proceeded to plug his nose with her hand, looking at him indifferently.

Zack couldn't breathe, if he opened his mouth to inhale, she would shove the pill down his throat, if he didn't then he would pass out and they would be able to do whatever they wanted to him.

Eventually, his need for air won as his mouth flew open as he gasped for air. This Ankara girl allowed him to get a few deep breaths before she shoved two pills followed by the liquid she had been holding earlier. He automatically swallowed in favor of inhaling more as her hand was still clamped on his nose.

After he had gulped down the pill he gasped for air again and attempted to wrench her hand off his nose with his right arm and chocked back a yell at the flames of pain that shot up his arm and sizzled in his torso.

At his yell, Ankara released his nose and jumped back.

"I'm sorry that I had to be rough, but you've broken a few of your bones. Please relax so that I can set them." Ankara said, not looking sorry at all.

Zack shook his head and glared at her. "Will somebody please tell me where the hell I am and what's going on?" He shouted, at his wits end.

Equen and Nick both jumped and stared at him, Equen looking more fearful then Nick.

"What the hell happened to me, and…" Zack trailed off and let out a frustrated sound.

Ankara sighed and sat down on the chair next to his bed.

"The twins over there, Equen and Nick, found you," She started. "On the beach, washed up and in a pool of your own blood, Equen stayed with you and Nick came to get me, Peter, and Rook. We all carried your unconscious hide back here and I left with Peter and Rook to get you these pills at the potion you just drank."

"And that other kid, what's his deal?" Zack muttered with confusion heavy in his voice.

"Glen has anger issues." Ankara replied dryly. "Peter and Rook are out back talking to him."

"But why was he so angry at me? And would you tell me where I am." Zack asked.

"Glen has an unhealthy grudge against Shin-Ra. His dad was a SOLDIER you see." Nick remarked from across the small room.

"You're in a house by the way." Ankara supplied vaguely.

"Okay, I can see that, but a house _where_?" Zack pressed for details, wanting to know his location a bit more then why that Glen kid had grudge that didn't even make sense. Zack knew that he wasn't in Gongaga, the air smelled different here, dirtier.

"Mister SOLDIER, you're in Lower Junon." Equen replied softly.


End file.
